Layers of structure and a captivating interpretation of materials come together to compose a kind of minimalist allure that is understated yet full of tension — this is the first impression that the brand TANGTSUNGCHIEN leaves on people. In 2022, after spending ten years immersed in Paris, fashion designer Tang Tsung Chien chose not to remain attached to the glamorous charm of the City of Light. Instead, he returned to his hometown, Taichung, and founded his namesake brand. From the very beginning, the soul of the brand has never been confined by any overly elaborate narrative or packaging. Rather, it feels like an extension of his personal experience, born from his living environment, aesthetic preferences, and the cultural movements he has undergone. As Tang Tsung Chien puts it, what TANGTSUNGCHIEN hopes to convey is not simply the pursuit of an external style, but the idea of design as a projection of one’s inner state and lived experience.
TANGTSUNGCHIEN — Brand Designer Tang Tsung-Chien
Returning from Paris to Taiwan: Seeking a Way for Design to Take Root Amid an Industry Gap
Before Tang Tsung Chien encountered fashion design at the age of 15, what he had originally wanted to study was interior design. By chance, however, he plunged into the world of fashion. After graduating from high school at 18, he left for Paris alone to study fashion. From patternmaking and textile design to competitions, and later internships and work experience at international brands such as LOEWE and the homeware division of ZARA HOME, nearly ten years passed in rotation. Tang fully experienced the workings of the fashion system, and precisely because of that, when looking back on the moment he decided to establish his own brand, while many would have seen Paris as the inevitable starting point, Tang did otherwise. He chose to return to his family home and begin again from scratch.
TANGTSUNGCHIEN — Brand Designer Tang Tsung-Chien
Tang candidly admits that “family being in Taiwan” has always been the deepest emotional pull in his heart. When considering the possibility of starting a business, he was clear about the realities and costs of that system — high rent, taxes, and labor expenses could all wear down an independent designer’s dream somewhere between idealism and reality.
At the suggestion of his younger sister Tang Yi, who now works alongside him in developing the brand and assisting with marketing, their grandmother’s old, then-idle house became the foundation that enabled him to resolutely return home and start his business. What felt different moving from France back to Taiwan? Tang states frankly that it was not only a matter of cultural difference, but also the noticeable gap in the overall maturity of the industry: “France’s fashion industry is already very complete, from production to sales. It can even satisfy domestic demand first before expanding to the rest of the world. But Taiwan is really only just beginning.”
Although the pace of the fashion industries in the two places differs significantly, Taiwan’s still-developing state has, in turn, given Tang more room to experiment and adjust. Facing such an environment, he did not rush to claim a place through an aggressively strong style. Instead, he chose to preserve flexibility so the brand could move forward steadily. “I think it’s about moving forward while observing along the way, solving each challenge one by one.” Through continuous adjustment, TANGTSUNGCHIEN has gradually established its own position and rhythm.
His grandmother’s former home became the creative base for Tang Tsung-Chien’s return to Taiwan and the launch of his own brand.
Design as a Guide, Material as a Storytelling Medium: “Forms of Holding” Unfolds a Spiritual Experiment in Support and Enclosure
If one were to deconstruct the design language of TANGTSUNGCHIEN, material and structure would undoubtedly be key elements in Tang Tsung Chien’s work. With a solid background in textile design, he states plainly that his greatest strength lies in his deep understanding of fabrics. He is skilled at piecing together materials with conflicting textures, or reshaping surfaces through experimental methods such as bleaching and pleating. His “SleepWalker” collection, which was selected as a finalist for the 34th Hyères International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Fashion Accessories in 2019, reflected his own cultural experience through patchwork and contrasting materials. In Tang’s creative logic, material is never merely a secondary condition of clothing. It is the core medium that determines the overall sense of weight, tactile experience, and emotional atmosphere.
“Materials themselves have the ability to tell stories, so I’m passionate about challenging the ‘incompatibility’ between different fabrics.” — Tang Tsung Chien
As for structure, it can be intuitively observed through the silhouettes of Tang’s garments. “My interest in structure is not about dazzling displays of technique, but about allowing structure itself to become a carrier of emotion.” He often works through layering, dismantling, recomposition, asymmetry, and variations on prototypes, allowing garments to retain a clear silhouette while still carrying a state of “not yet being completely fixed.”
From a designer’s perspective, how does he view the relationship between clothing and the wearer? Tang believes that once clothing is worn, it can give people a different kind of strength and confidence from the everyday, as though establishing a line of defense with which to face the world. This imagination can also be glimpsed in his newly presented 2026 Autumn/Winter collection, “Forms of Holding,” at Taipei Fashion Week.
Tang explains that his design path in this season shifts its gaze from the external environment toward the inner mechanisms of defense, giving rise to this theme. It does not come from a physiological observation of bodily sensation, but leans more toward a projection of psychological state. “Modern life places a great deal of pressure on people, and in this season, clothing plays the role of ‘armor.’” He believes that when people put on clothing, this outer shell should provide an inner sense of security, protecting the most original and pure self. In this sense, the garments possess both the functions of “holding” and “enclosing.”
“The function of clothing has never been only to modify the body; it can also become a form of self-protection.” — Tang Tsung Chien
The clothing expression continues this idea, using extensive techniques of repetition, layering, and folding, so that garments are no longer merely constructions of external silhouette, but instead establish a deeper relationship with the body. They are filled with the possibility of supporting the wearer’s emotions, memories, and life experiences. Tang notes that achieving the ideal structure in actual production is not easy. “It is somewhat close to origami. The prototype of each pattern piece may appear very simple, but through asymmetrical cutting and multilayered folding, it can create a three-dimensional sense of space and weight around the body. Many of the structures that look complex are actually developed from the same basic foundation.” This design approach gives the garments a sculptural sense of volume while preserving the softness and fluidity of clothing itself, shaping a quiet field in which one may return to the self.
TANGTSUNGCHIEN has always excelled at combining textiles such as lace and knitwear to create delicate and richly layered textures. In response to the international market’s emphasis on natural materials, this season also significantly increases the proportion of wool used. Although natural materials can be more difficult to care for in Taiwan’s climate, Tang remains fascinated by wool’s substantial sense of weight. In terms of color, the collection adopts neutral and restrained shades such as dark gray, black, and beige, creating a calm, rational sensibility akin to a “protective shield.”
TANGTSUNGCHIEN is known for working with wool, lace, knitwear and other materials to create rich sartorial layers. For the Fall/Winter 2026 collection, “Forms of Holding,” the brand employs repetition, stacking and folding techniques to construct a sense of “wearable architecture” and “spaces that hold emotion.”
Photography by Mai Hsien-Yun.
Confronting the Sculptural Essence of Clothing
For this presentation at Taipei Fashion Week AW26, Tang chose the “Presentation” format newly introduced this season. Echoing the interpretation of clothing as “armor,” he arranged 16 looks into an army-like formation. The setup also contained subtle design thinking: the front row began with lighter tones, gradually building toward the final row anchored in deep black, creating visual progression and contrast. He also deliberately avoided setting a fixed viewing route, allowing visitors to enter and move freely, deciding their own path and how long to linger.
TANGTSUNGCHIEN at the Taipei Fashion Week AW26 presentation.
Photography by Mai Hsien-Yun.
Listening closely to the music on site, one could sense the “airiness” and “minimalism” introduced by the brand’s longtime collaborating composer. Avoiding strong rhythms, the sound instead created a solemn, almost temple-like atmosphere, allowing audiences to slowly enter a more measured pace and a more refined state of perception. “I hope people can stop for a moment, look a little longer, and feel a little more, rather than simply rushing through a show.” For Tang, this kind of “quiet exchange” is better able to convey the season’s deeper exploration of “holding.”
“This mode of presentation also allows clothing to return to its essence as ‘sculptural objects,’ enabling viewers to observe the thickness of the fabric, the cut, and every carefully considered detail up close and at a slower pace. It makes the relationship between the garments and the viewer more open and fluid.”— Tang Tsung Chien
Expanding Possibilities Through Continuous Becoming
Since 2023, Tang has participated in Taipei Fashion Week several times, and he has developed direct and concrete observations of the changes over the past few years. Compared with previous years, when joint formats and unified thematic frameworks were more common, he feels that this year’s AW26 season gave designers more choices and room for expression in terms of presentation format. “This time, there was no thematic framework limiting us, so we could focus more fully on what we wanted to do.”
He hopes this also means that Taiwan’s fashion environment is gradually returning subjectivity to designers, allowing brands to be seen through a more complete language. In addition, Tang has noticed subtle shifts in industry connectivity. “Some new buyers have appeared, and that is quite important.” For designers and brands, this represents the possibility that Taipei Fashion Week is slowly moving from one-way presentation toward more connections with the actual market. Taiwan’s fashion scene is gradually establishing its own rhythm.
When asked whether the brand has a clear future goal, Tang answers without hesitation: “To turn losses into profit.” For him, as a designer still in the early stages of expansion, this answer is sincere and direct. He does not shy away from the fact that TANGTSUNGCHIEN still exists in a state of tension between artistry and commerciality. Due to his commitment to materials and craftsmanship, costs remain high, creating a stark contrast with today’s prevailing fast-fashion consumption model. For this reason, he must constantly negotiate the balance between the two.
Tang hopes that TANGTSUNGCHIEN will not be limited to clothing alone, but can use a design logic rooted in material as its foundation, allowing the brand to hold the potential to extend into different fields. Whether through collaborations with craftspeople, cross-disciplinary projects — such as the SS25 collection “Remembrance of Things Past,” which was presented at Taipei Fashion Week in collaboration with artist Xia Xian — or through the development of bags, small objects, and even different types of diffusion lines, he remains open to possibilities. For Tang, this is not a compromise with the market, but a way for the brand to truly operate in the long term: maintaining the density of its design while establishing a means of survival that allows it to keep moving forward.
▐ Interview & Text / Ian Liu
▐ Editor & Coordination / Irene Lin
▐ Interview Photography / Irene Lin
About the Brand｜TANGTSUNGCHIEN
Founded by designer Tang Tsung Chien, TANGTSUNGCHIEN encompasses both menswear and womenswear collections. With material research and hand craftsmanship at its core, the brand begins from the relationship between body and space, developing a clothing language that is soft yet structurally charged. It continues to explore perception, structure, and form within contemporary everyday life.
About the Designer｜Tang Tsung Chien
Tang Tsung Chien is a Taiwanese fashion designer who studied textiles and fashion at École Duperré and Institut Français de la Mode in Paris, and interned at brands including LOEWE, cultivating a distinctive expressive vocabulary. His creative practice focuses on clothing structure, material application, and the relationship between garment and body, continuously developing his personal design language through hands-on creation. After returning to Taiwan, he founded his namesake brand and developed both menswear and womenswear collections.
⚫ Brand Website: https://tangtsungchien.com/
⚫ Contact: info@tangtsungchien.com